The Image and Likeness of God
by Ally612
Summary: Because all men are created in His likeness, even this one. EC in abundance, Raoulfriendly, Leroux and ALW based. Used to be Nights Eternal Goodbye. Now actually worth reading.


**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Phantom of the Opera.**

A/N: I edited this rather largely, it's much better now!

---

"It's over now, the music of the night."

His powerful voice whispered what he had just sang hysterically moments before, riddled with an air of fragile balance of sanity and insanity at the same time. Echoing throughout the corridors of the underground labyrinth of his lair, it resounded in his mind, loudly in his ears. He laughed bitterly, not caring if the mob found him or not. Christine, his angel, the light in the darkness of his life, was gone, nothing mattered anymore.

"It's over now."

And it was over. The obsession, the madness, the hoping, the dreaming, the wishing, the infuriating pain, the stings of betrayal, his loneliness, his only desire in life, it was all over.

He had nothing to live for now.

"Over!" He choked out again, removing his make-shift mask to wipe his tears hurriedly. Ashamed of his weakness, he clenched his fists tightly, cutting little crescent moons in the palms of his hands. The band that Christine had given him back indenting painfully into his hand, leaving what he knew would be an ugly purple bruise, marring his unblemished hands, a magnificent contrast to the deformity covered by white porcelain.

His head tipped back and his anguished howls were finally free. He fell to his knees, his arms clutching around him. He leaned against the wall, rocking back and forward, completely lost in his grief. He didn't notice that the angry cries of the mob, that were once so bloodthirsty and furious had come to a halt, retreating from the monster of the Opera. His breath came in short gasps, taking more and more energy to draw and release then each previous one.

"Why?" He whispered brokenly. The question was reverberating in the many passageways, rumbling up through the ventilation shafts. So caught up in his grief, he didn't hear the footsteps hurrying through the halls behind him, frantic in their beat. It could have been a beat to a drum, a pounding heartbeat, the rhythm to which his bloodied, bruised, and battered fists beat against the walls, and floors, all around him. His deep ebony eyes were swimming with the tears that spilled, numbered as the myriad of the sky.

The footfalls and heavy breathing grew louder and louder as they approached, until even he noticed them over his sobs and gasping gulps for air. His head still bowed, and his arms wrapped around his drawn up legs, he did not bother to look up.

"Who has come to gawk at me?" He bellowed brokenly. "Do you wish to remove the mask of the Devil's Child, the Opera Ghost? This murderer? This monster?" The rest was in a whisper. "This abomination upon humanity..."

"Speak your name, you coward! Speak and put me out of my misery like the wounded animal, the beast that I am!" He shouted just as loudly as before. Choked sobs met his ears.

"Speak!" He glanced up, seeing a hemline, from a soiled ivory gown. He drew an intake of breath as he looked up. Indeed it was her, looking miraculous, in a torn and damp frock. Herdeep brown curls were in front of her angelic eyes, as she shook them away impatiently. He loved when she did that. Her hands were cold, yet warmer then his still as she reached for his hands, seemingly in slow motion. She had never looked more beautiful, he thought with a deep ache of resigned hopelessness.

She brought his still clenched fists to her lips, blue and shivering. Gently, she kissed each bruised and swollen knuckle. Grasping his larger hands in her own, she uncurled the fingers, and started fixedly at the ring, slightly covered in the blood from his open gashes. She noticed that he looked at the ground, ashamed to be in her presence, as if he was not worthy. She lifted his chin with the fingers of her dainty hand, not noticing the blood from his own wounds. Looking him in the eye she raised up. Pulling him up with her own strength, she reached out to stroke his unmarred cheek as he turned his head at her touch.

_A dream, she could never love a monster like you! No one loved him, his own mother had denied him a kiss on his birthday!_ He thought all these things furiously, scolding himself for raising his hopes too drastically. She reached with her hand to his mask, her eyes silently asking what her lips would not. He looked away. She took a deep breath to steady her shaking hands.

She pulled it away, the white porcelain, impersonal and cold to the touch and tossed it some feet away. It clattered with a small noise and broke in half. Gasping loudly, he felt helpless, hopelessly reaching for it. Only to have her gentle hands calm him. He prepared for the awaited scream of horror that he knew would come and braced himself. Only to hear nothing but a content sigh, and fingertips on his deformed cheek. Stroking the twisted, ravaged flesh, lightly smoothing back his dark hair from his face, where it had become unruly. Her fingers caressed the bumps of grotesque red skin, bubbling over mishappen bones, running over the collapsed side of his nose, his drooping eyelid, his malformed lips.

"Christine…"

He turned away, still, not believing what his senses were desperately trying to convey to him. His voice was a shattered whisper that told of sorrow and layers of self-loathing.

"Erik, my love...face me! Know that I shall look upon your face with nothing but love, pure and simple love! I feel no loathing, no fear! Oh Erik, I'm unworthy of you! Unworthy of your majesty! Do not turn away from me, not when I beckon you to me with words of utmost love and caring!"

Sobs wracked his body, as she rocked him like a child, letting him cry into her shoulder, as he should have been able to do much sooner. She didn't know how long they stood there, making an odd picture, someone as imposing as the phantom weeping into her dress. But as he pulled away, he spoke.

"You, Christine, think! You cannot possibly want this, want me! Do you want to spend the rest of your days gazing upon my wretched dead face! You think yourself unworthy of me? I am a corpse Christine, nothing but a corpse who loves you pathetically. I am a curse upon humanity! A blight to this judgemental and cruel world! I am not worthy to kiss your feet!"

She pushed his chin up at the same level as her own.

"Erik I love you. Do you hear me? I love you! I do not care about your face, I love you! I love all of you! Let me love you...please. I want to grow old with you, I want to share my days with you! Let me in! For God's sake, let me in!"

She crashed her lips on his, pulling him down, so that she could reach easier. His arms found their way to her waist, and hers to his shoulders. Waves of passion, desire, lust, and love rose, crashing over his mind. The need to make her his own, to mark her, to join as one consumed him until he could barely stand up. She made him feel like a normal man, with wants and desires, that weren't outlandish, far-fetched, or laughable. She moaned into his mouth, and he tangled his fingers into her chocolate curls. She pulled closer to his body, and instantly aroused him by her presence. The passion was peaking and they had to pull apart for heavy breaths before continuing, several times. The night exploded into day in front of his eyes, and he pulled back first, panting for breath. She looked up and smiled, hand finding his. He wondered how she could be so calm, his knees were about to collapse. She was trembling softly, but not in fear of him.

He stared at her in wonder. _She had kissed his dead face, his death's head. Yet, she had not died? She was alive! His living bride! _His eyes held questions as well, inquiries that would not be quelled.

"What about de Chagny?"

"He let me go; did you not hear me, singing back to you? Oh Erik, it was for you! I thought you would come, but when you did not, I knew I must come to you!"

"Christine, you came back…oh Christine, you came back to me, I thought you had left forever..."

"Let us go home, my love…" She whispered to him, quietly soothing his fears and anxieties.

And they walked into the darkness, and as they walked, he stepped on the two halves of the mask with his boot, smiling triumphantly with no small amount of uncertainty, listening to it shatter into many pieces, much like the despair and wall of ice around his heart was shattered into insignificant slivers. A new day dawned, one with day and night, white and black, one without eternal night or eternal solitude.

Stepping out of the passage, Erik passed by a shattered mirror with a smile on his unmasked face.

---

The next day the pair was married in a quiet ceremony. There were two witnesses, Sisters of a convent not a block away. The bride had been beautiful in a splendorous gown of white lace and satin. The groom had been ugly, but his face had shone with such love that the priest asked no questions and did not show any revulsion, nor did he have to supress any.

As the priest looked down on another sacred union, he gave a small upturn at the lips, for at the moment of the kiss, as the groom had lifted the bride's fair with the utmost care and love, a pure beam of light had shown upon them, making the man's face seem as beautiful as any work by Michaelangelo, Mozart, Bach. The light, fragmented by beautiful shards of colored glass had illuminated his ravaged flesh and distorted it something exquisite.

He was created in the image and likeness of God, after all.


End file.
